DaDooRunRun 5K Race Recap

Taking Rush Running to meet W.C. Handy!

This weekend I travelled to Florence, Alabama.  A few weeks ago I did a quick Internet search and discovered that the W.C. Handy Music Festival was going on for the weekend that I was going to be there.  As part of the music festival, a local running club was hosting the DaDooRunRun 5K on Saturday morning.  I found a blog race recap from a few years ago which gave me a good idea of what to expect for the race course. 

Friday night I took a drive from my hotel to make sure I could find the race site.  As I was driving in the area I discovered that just a few blocks from the race site was the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed house in the state of Alabama.  It was a neat discovery! W.C. Handy is known as the father of blues and the race began from the W.C. Handy House and Museum.  It was neat to do a race and learn a little history all at once!

I got to the race site about 30 minutes before the 8am start time.  There was plenty of parking at the hospital across the street.  There was very little traffic and people were hanging out along the edge of the street and in the museum parking lot.  Registration was a little slow due to a registration glitch where pre-registered people weren't on their printout.  Lucky for me I was on the list! The race wasn't chipped timed so the registration process didn't take too long once they verified I was on the list. 

I had plenty of time to run my goody bag back to the car and then have a potty stop before the race start.  The race directors took time to remind everyone how to put their bibs on the front and to make sure to have the tear tab available for the timing crew.  It's not something that you hear before every race so it was a nice reminder. 

Nice downhill finish!

The race course was through residential neighborhoods, the downtown Florence area, and the outskirts of the University of North Alabama.  It was pretty much an out and back course but there were a couple of differences.  The course had a bunch of hills which were made manageable with the shade cover that the mature trees provided.  There were two water stops on the course which was great since it was so warm out.  The race finished on a downhill and that was an awesome design feature for the course.

Oh, yeah...I'm giving that Popsicle a Thumbs Up!

There were about 280 people in the race and I managed to finish 4th in my age group with a 31:31.  I was pleased with my time.  My goal for the race was to only walk during the water stops which I accomplished.  This might seem like way too easy of a goal but given the heat this summer I have really increased my walk breaks.  It was good to challenge myself to run through the whole race and work on steady pacing.   They had a nice spread of water and fruit for post-race but my favorite were the icy Popsicles that they had.  It was perfect for the heat! Another great feature with the music festival was the live band that played for us.  They were great and played a mixture of different music. 

Live music on the museum porch.